2025 Danger Crime Fiction Award Winner

“The Cryptic Clue is an easy, entertaining read. It goes beyond the usual cosy conventions to ignite a yearning…

Read an extract from The Cryptic Clue…

Meet the characters from The Tea Ladies series…

A great panel session at BAD Crime Sydney Festival 2023 with my partners in crime, Sean Wilson and Joanna Jenkins, and facilitated by Claudine Tinellis.

As part of the BAD Crime Sydney Festival in 2023, there was (much to my delight!) a Tea Ladies walking tour of Surry Hills with historian, Elliot Lindsay, at Murders Most Foul.

An in-depth interview with Dark Matter Zine publisher, Nalini Hayes.

I was in Sydney earlier in August to attend a fabulous initiative by Penguin Random House that brought six of their crime authors together for an event.

ABC Nightlife Interview

Enjoyed selecting some of my favourite mysteries to share with you.

Highly recommend this podcast series of author interviews by Michell Barraclough - in-depth and informative.

As featured in The Australian Financial Review

Good chat about The Tea Ladies with Victoria Carthew on QBD Crime Club.

When I was a kid growing up on a farm, Christmas carols, concerts, dances, and farmer meetings were all held in the hall of our two-room school. The Country Women’s Association managed all social events and, at the end of the evening, a supper was served. The star of those suppers was Mrs Parnell’s light as air cream sponge.

In the 1950s, women’s fashion was all about being demure, tasteful and feminine. Colour co-ordination was paramount; matching shoes, handbags, and hats. White gloves for special occasions and church. Stockings held up by suspender belts. Pierced ears were condemned as ‘cheap’, as was too much eye-makeup. There were a lot of rules.

When I was a kid, the phrase "There's tea in the pot" was commonly heard, meaning that tea had recently been made and kept warm by a hand-knitted tea cosy, ready for anyone who was parched. There always seemed to be a pot on the go, and tea was part of the daily rhythm of life.

The Sixties is often referred to as the "golden age" of counterculture, characterised by hippie and ‘mod’ fashions, free love, and psychedelic music. But was it really as fun as they say or is it just a myth perpetuated by the baby boomer generation?

Tea ladies were important members of office culture from the early 20th century. They were a source of comfort, cheer providing steaming cups of tea and biscuits, to office and factory workers. But who were these tea ladies and how did they come to be a part of our workday routines?

Before I attempted to write a novel myself, I always imagined that authors wrote their books an orderly fashion, meditatively gazing into the distance as they search for the perfect word and tapping out polished prose. Finally delivering a finished manuscript like a neatly clipped topiary of words. 

Very excited to announce the upcoming release (12 April 2023) of my new novel The Tea Ladies which is a fun (and funny) murder mystery set in 1965 in Sydney’s Surry Hills rag-trade district. It's about three tea ladies who get together to solve a crime.